Quote - Rochr, i hope you aren't telling me that now because of the monitor i just went and purchased.

I mean are you just saying that for a general guide to all on what not to look at.

Don´t worry man, that was just a general tip for anyone working with graphics, not a poor attempt to be mean. :)

Normally monitors with TN panels are the 22" Wide screens they sell out really cheap at most of the large electronic hardware stores. These are good for gaming, but, with very few exceptions, unsuitable for graphic work because of bad color reproduction and calibration possibilities..
With most of these panels, it´s basically impossible to have a proper view of the colors in an image because the colors will change depending on from where you look at them. Move your head slightly to the right, and the colors will differ etc etc...
The good thing is that it´s a problem you immidiately see.

19" with TN panels aren´t as common, so you probably did a good buy.

Absolutely avoid:

Glossy screens
TN-panels
Low viewing angle

The glossy screens will reflect just about everything there is to reflect unless you´re in a completely dark room, and the TN-panels( which usually are the cheap, low res, low responce time, bad viewing angled monitors) will give you neck pains. For every cm you move your head, the colors will look different.  

Quote - Guiness = yuck

 
You martians are a strange race.
Even us tentacloids love Guiness.

So, where´s that famous comfy chair of yours Bryster?

Neither the nationality nor the name fits here, but Redinard made some seriously good looking abstracts with Bryce.

Quote - Hey Rochr what are you using now anyway? As your stuff is moving lightyears ahead...

 
Thanks mate. :)
I´m mainly using Cinema4D these days. A program i highly recommend. 
Once you get the principles of how tagging and such is working, it´s actually quite easy to learn and it´s one powerful program.

There is a demo available over at maxon.net if you want to try it out. I can´t say for sure, but i think it´s fully functional for 30 days.

Vile,

If for whatever reason you should fancy Lightwave, let me know about it. 
I have a full unused 8.5 package here with printed manuals, and i´ld be happy to let you have it cheap.

Great news indeed. You know you´ll be missed pal, but way to go and congrats. :)

Well, even if you have a small budget, i´ld suggest Cinema4D. Regardless of what some might say, it is a highend app, and its core package, which now also includes Bodypaint, is more than enough to start with.
And as already pointed out, from the core, you can expand the package with whatever modules you want later on. 

Good luck

I believe Bryster is one the right track. 

I had a similar experience when i made the Masters Series scene "The Block", where one single material brought the entire system down on its knees. Once i replaced that material, the scene rendered in less than 30 minutes, highres.

In my experience, Bryce normally don´t have much issues with massive scenes and highres textures as long as you use booleans and/or terrain objects. In fact, Bryce normally handle large scenes with 2-3000 pixel resolution textures better than most of the professional apps combined. :)
However, imported meshes is not always running as smoothly, and often those in combination with one particular texture can cause memory issues.

This may not be the easiest solution, but if i were you, i´ld grey the scene, and reload each texture to pinpoint the one possibly causing the issue. 

Happy holidays everyone.

Way to go Rod. Congratulations.

I still prefer and use 5.5, which i find to be the most solid version released.

Hey there Bobbystahr and welcome to this friendly bunch. People here are quite civilized and shouldn´t give you any hard time. :)

Yes, if anyone hear from Kirk, let us know. I hope he´s alright and that nothing serious has happened.

Quote - Maxwell might be slower, but its results are also far superior in terms of image quality, even if you just use very basic settings and materials.

Not necessarily. It´s actually quite easy to get really lousy results with that renderer as well. I´ve seen quite a few Maxwell-rendered pieces that could´ve been easily matched and overcomed with Bryce and a few radial lights. Of course it all bottoms down to the user, but that´s the "no such thing as instant excellence" i was referring to in my previous post. :)